Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk The Harness Prize Essay for 1913

"Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk" by E. Allison Peers is a detailed study of how playwrights of a bygone era staged insanity, offering a window into how society used to think about mental health. The work examines how the insane were portrayed in a variety of plays, looking at the historical views and the tales the stories told about madness within their stories. Peers wants to illustrate the importance madness plays within the world of Elizabethan dramas, revealing how these plays reflect our society's attitudes about mental illness. The text begins by introducing the importance of studying madness of the time-period through drama of that period. Peers argues that studying madness in these plays helps us understand how society's attitudes toward mental illness changed. Peers explains that he will look at madness through the viewpoint of both history and stories, paying special attention to the different types of mad people we see in both serious and funny plays. Finally, the author makes it clear that his study will focus on how drama, not medicine, played a part in portraying mental illness at that time.